By Vestnik Kavkaza
Yesterday the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution which required that the Russian delegation was deprived of the right to vote and the right to be present in decision-making structures of PACE until the end of the year. PACE didn’t recognize the annexation of Crimea and criticized Moscow’s activity in Ukraine. PACE even could expel the Russian delegation, if Moscow continues an escalation of the conflict.
Of course, Russia won’t abandon Crimea. Moreover, it intends to do a lot for its development. The Ministry for Economics suggests establishing of a special economic zone on the territory of the two new constituents of the federation – Crimea and Sevastopol.
Vladimir Gutenyov, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Industry, told Vestnik Kavkaza: “Crimea has more than 2 million population, which enables us to solve demographic problems. Moreover, it is an important ideological aspect of self-identification as a united powerful nation. Crimea also will bring significant advantages to the country’s budget.
We will get significant benefits from an opportunity to return to a fair full gas price, we will stop paying serious money for our naval forces in Sevatopol, and good shiprepairing and shipbuilding factories which service our naval forces that used to belong to Russia. I am sure that the volumes of their services will grow. The State Duma Committee for Industry conducted an important session devoted to the prospects for developing the United Shipbuilding Corporation. Six directors of Crimean shipbuilding factories were invited to the session. They spoke about their readiness to work in the framework of the state program for development of shipbuilding, they have wonderful human capital assets.”
Gutenyov also reminded about the capacities of the Crimean agroindustrial complex: “Of course it will face many challenges and problems, such as deficit of water and electricity power, but this will only encourage development of energy-saving and water-saving technologies.”
Arkadi Zlochevsky, the president of the Russian Grain Union, sayd that “Crimea is traditionally a serious producer of fruits, vegetables, and grain. They have vast lands and old traditions. Last year Crimea produced 1.3 million tons of grain. And it was a harvestless season for Crimea. An average volume for Crimea is about 15.-2 million tons of grain annually.”
However, Crimea has always suffered from nonsufficient attention by the Ukrainian authorities and a lack of financial support of agriculture, i.e. Crimea wasn’t an important region for Ukraine in the sphere of industry and agriculture. “So, there was a lack of financing. Crimea was a stepson for the general regional policy,” Zlochevsky thinks. “There are three grain terminals in Crimea, one of them is a major deep-water terminal in Sevastopol. However, the terminal belongs to Mr. Poroshenko.” An export component will be strong in Crimea, as it is expensive to import Crimean grain to Russia, and it takes a lot of time. It is easier to export grain to other countries.
Anatoly Aksakov, the deputy chairman of the Committee for Financial Market, told Vestnik Kavkaza that “initially Crimea will demand significant investments. In recent 20-25 years nobody had invested into Crimea. The Ukrainians had no necessary resources or didn’t consider Crimea their native and didn’t invest into its development. The Russians feared to invest into Crimea, as there was uncertainty – they felt that it was something Russian with similar mentality and language, but at the same time legal uncertainty prevented investments. And Crimea went to seed. There are Soviet hotels, resorts, bad roads which were built in the Soviet time.”
According to Aksakov, “at the moment huge resources should be invested to restore tourist and healthcare infrastructure, build roads, provide Crimea with water and electricity power. But soon it will repay. It is a favored land where three harvests could be reaped in a year. It produces crops which we import from Israel, Arab countries, Spain. We could import fresh fruits, vegetables, potato to other regions of Russia from Crimea all the year round.”
